Argos aims to circulate writing about topical matters of public and political import that is local, critical and accessible. We believe critical intellectual conversation should be heard here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, not simply published for credit in international fora for more limited and specialised audiences. Of particular interest to us is writing that grounds its concern with the public or political good of place-making in theory or philosophy.

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democracy

by Argos as You as Argos

...l inequality, climate change, loss of biodiversity, health) can only come from a communal approach, I would also claim that any such ‘commonism’ can only be pursued if at the same time we recover the radical character of democracy. Part of the problem, however, when articulating change is the need to find a name around which the desire for change can come together, and in this regard democracy still has a lot of purchase in the popular imagi...

Where to begin? Between the beginning of 2011 and the end of 2012, we tried to expose the reality of university life. We are here to take credit: we, the characters who exist outside the determination of capitalist democracy! As anyone who has ever written anything should know — but of course they don’t because they have the logics of a whole world against them! — the production of each and every ‘I’ serves to produce each and every instance o...

...ivic order. These networks of resistance provided the basis for a culture of opposition towards the projects of ideological cleansing that had been so brutally implemented by the dictatorship. Upon the return to institutional democracy in March of 1990, the affective ties that had been created in this resistance movement were suppressed, civil society ceding the task of mending national social bonds, democratic culture and national institutions t...

...elps to meet needs and aspirations right across democratic society and is accountable to all its citizens. If one part of that citizenry is benefitting more from the ways in which a university operates, then that is not democracy for all. It is a malfunction—if stated generously. So far, the university approach has not served Māori and Pasifika as well as it has served other learners. The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) reported in 200...

...rious’, of something prior to language. Derrida thus identifies literature with the freedom of speech, the unconditional right to say everything and to disclaim responsibility for what is said, that is the linchpin of Western democracy: What we call literature ... implies that license is given to the writer to say everything he wants or everything he can, while remaining shielded, safe from all censorship, be it religious or political [....] This...

...t turns out, is being consumerised and atomised all the while, with rankings and targets in view. Such tensions are smoothed over, however, and readers are encouraged to embrace the plan’s patterned contraries: efficiency and democracy, outputs and spontaneity, strategy and joy. Above all else, the plan offers up the perfectly empty experience of ‘excellence’. Mission The real University of Auckland sits on Ngāti Whātua land and understands its...